Zarak (TF2017)
Galen from The Transformers (2017 TV Series). Bio Zarak is a powerful and corrupt Nebulan leader who transforms into the head of Scorponok. History Arc 3 Lord Zarak was a high-ranking Peer of questionable morality and ethics. Though generally believing he worked for what was, in his own mind, the good of all Nebulos, he tended to be close-minded, dishonest, manipulative, self-aggrandizing, and excessively proud. He loved his daughter Llyra very much, but was a political rival of her young and idealistic lover Galen. When the Autobots arrived on Nebulos, Lord Zarak became convinced of their sinister intentions and urged his peers to take swift and decisive action against the "invaders." Though several other members of the government council agreed with this course of action at first, Galen opposed the idea of lashing out before they had attempted a dialogue with the newcomers. As more voices spoke in opposition to his, Zarak was quick to denounce any declaration of peace the Autobots put forth as lies meant to lure Nebulos into a false sense of security. Zarak went so far as to engineer himself some of the "evidence" proving the robots' guilt, such as causing Blurr to seemingly attack a crowd of Nebulans. When the Autobots later approached the capital city of Koraja to try and further negotiate peace, Zarak urged Galen to open fire, though Galen ignored his histrionics. |Ring of Hate| Zarak didn't give up his dream of getting rid of the giant robots; he paid demonstrators to stage protests in Koraja, creating the illusion of popular support for his position. Later, Zarak took more direct action, and used information gleaned from the Autobots to contact their enemies, the Decepticons, and inform them of Fortress Maximus's whereabouts. |Broken Glass| When Scorponok found the task of conquering Nebulos more challenging than he had initially believed it to be, Zarak delineated to him the advantages of the Headmaster process developed by the Autobots, and ultimately binary bonded with the Decepticon leader. Using Llyra as a messenger, he lured the Autobot Headmasters into a trap by claiming that he and his crew were being held hostage. As he led the Decepticons into battle, he soon found himself overwhelmed by the raw power at his command, nearly forgetting the things he cared about, even his own daughter. When Scorponok used Llyra and other Nebulans as a distraction, endangering her life, he experienced only a moment of hesitation before carrying on with the plan. Later, after the Autobots were defeated and Zarak separated from Scorponok, he was immensely relieved to find that Llyra did not recall exactly what had happened during the battle. |Love and Steel| Zarak carried on with his campaign of aggression, battling the Autobots at every turn and claiming to the news media that his work was a victory for Nebulos, even as his forces began reducing the planet to rubble. The captive Galen tried to convince him of his own madness and battle lust, but not till he and his forces nearly destroyed The Nursery did he have the "moment of clarity" that let him see the true nature of his actions. As he related it to Galen, he was being overwhelmed by the force of Scorponok's personality, which he claimed was "reprogramming" him, causing him to act against his own will. With his last shreds of decency, he freed the Autobots so that Nebulos might still have a chance. He then immediately joined a battle against those selfsame Headmasters, his brief moment of independence lost. |Brothers in Armor| The Autobots left Nebulos, and Scorponok ordered his Decepticons to pursue. In a battle within the caves of Mount St. Hilary, Zarak used his small size to pursue a potential human hostage into the deeper caves, where the larger Fortress Maximus could not follow. Zarak and Galen eventually came to fisticuffs, till Zarak used his mind-link with Scorponok to blast the ceiling over the human. Rushing to save the human, Galen was killed, to Zarak's delight. Unfortunately, the human then took control of Fortress Maximus, and the Decepticons were driven into retreat. |Trial by Fire| Zarak soon began experimenting on his own troops, developing the Pretender process to meld the organic and the mechanical into twelve powerful new warriors. Unfortunately for the evil scientist, Optimus Prime's mind found its way into his computer and gave the Autobots access to his files, allowing them to duplicate the process. Though Zarak and Scorponok tried to kill Optimus by battling him in a digital landscape, they were nearly lobotomized when his opponent uploaded massive amounts of data into his processor. |Pretender to the Throne| Zarak used his humanoid form on several occasions to operate discretely on Earth. He first set up the Z Foundation, a Decepticon front operation designed to get humans to destroy the Autobots. Under his orders, Kreb, Brisko, and Lokos hired a quartet of bounty hunters to test out new "jammer" devices the Decepticons had developed to paralyze their foes. The "Roadjammers," as they were dubbed, turned on the Decepticons after one mission, and used the devices on the three Headmasters. Zarak was forced to intervene personally, bringing Scorponok along to swat the bothersome humans. But one of them, Felix, had managed to modify the jammer to also take control of its victims motor functions. As a result, Scorponok was beaten down by his own minions. Left at the humans' mercy, Zarak was forced to use an "anti-jammer," which allowed the Headmasters to spring back to his aid, but also released the Autobot prisoners. |Ca$h and Car-nage!| Scorponok managed to lure Highbrow out into a forest, where Mindwipe lay in wait for the Autobot. Using his powers of hypnosis, Mindwipe gave Highbrow a severe case of amnesia, and next convinced him that he had always been a Decepticon. Highbrow remained ill-at-ease, and so both Mindwipe and Scorponok transformed their heads into their Nebulan forms to defuse the tense atmosphere. It was at this time that the Decepticons learned of their fatal mistake: though Highbrow's mind had been blanked, Gort's had not! Free to think independently, the heroic Nebulan knocked out Vorath, taking Mindwipe out of the fight. But Zarak reached Scorponok before he too could be dealt with, and recombined with his larger partner. Gort outwitted them once more by pretending to return under Mindwipe's thrall in rejoining Highbrow, only to assume complete control of the Autobot's motor functions. The Autobot ripped Scorponok's head off his shoulders, causing him to black out from the forced separation. |All in the Minds| Highbrow carried Scorponok's head back to the Autobots' headquarters, unable to bring himself to terminate Zarak, and thus end Scorponok's threat permanently. Scorponok's Decepticons caught up to him before he could rejoin his fellow Autobots, and rejoined their leader's head to his body, returning him to full functionality. Revenge for Scorponok's decapitation would wait however, as the Decepticons were then swept up in a plot to stop a time storm from destroying the Earth, forming a tenuous alliance with the Autobots along the way. Zarak/Scorponok leaped into the fray despite word of caution from his troops, and wound up getting clobbered by the future-Decepticon Galvatron for his rashness. |Time Wars| Trivia *Tom Kane voices Zarak. Changes *Bludgeon, Carnivac, Catilla, Octopunch, Snarler, and Stranglehold didn't appear in Pretender to the Throne! *The Soundwave and Terrorcons from the Target: 2006 timeline following Rodimus Prime to the past is omitted in the Time Wars's episode adaptation for being ultimately pointless in the story. Gallery File:Zarak_(TF2017).jpg|without armor Category:Articles by Trachodon56 Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Nebulans Category:Decepticons Category:Headmasters Category:The Transformers (2017 TV Series) Category:The Transformers (2017 TV Series) Characters Category:The Transformers (2017 TV Series) Decepticons